


Saving Daylight

by IJM



Category: General Hospital
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:14:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27331771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IJM/pseuds/IJM
Summary: There's an extra hour in the day. How will Franco use it?
Relationships: Franco and Elizabeth Baldwin
Comments: 5
Kudos: 13





	Saving Daylight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JoJo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoJo/gifts).



Franco Baldwin checked the time on his FitBit. It was 5:20 am, though he felt like it was 6:20 because he hadn’t adjusted to the morning’s time change. He sighed. _An extra hour_ , he thought. He was possibly the only person on the planet who could appreciate having an extra hour of 2020. He wished he could go back in time two days… just two days. He would savor every moment with his family, knowing his world—and by fate’s cruel twist—their worlds were about to be blown apart.

He had barely slept all night, contemplating his diagnosis and every potential complication his anxious mind could think of. He had a second brain tumor. _Of course, he did._ The fates could never let him be happy for long and his brain was their favorite target, whether it was the tumor he had for years when he was younger or battling repressed memories or having his psyche fried by a science-fiction-like experiment that made him believe he was Drew Cain.

_Time._ He’d lost months of his life when he thought he was Drew. Now Terry said he could _lose time_ as a symptom of the tumor. Maybe he already had lost time. He didn’t remember defacing Ava’s portrait, but, damn, if the vandalism didn’t _look_ like his early work. And that scared the hell out of him. What if the impulses that made his art so dark did the same to him? Again.

He hadn’t told his wife yet. He didn’t want to burden her. He didn’t want to hurt her, and he knew the news would break her heart. He knew he would have to tell her soon. And there were the boys. Things were good with all three boys. Now he was going to cause more heartbreak. They needed stability and that was the thing he was about to jerk out from under them.

Franco sighed again and decided to get out of bed. He had an extra hour. He could either lay in bed, wallowing in self-pity and what-ifs, or he could take advantage of the gift of time.

He gently got out of the bed so as not to wake Elizabeth. He leaned over and kissed her forehead. She was a beauty, inside and out. She was his heart and soul. And he was going to cause her unbearable pain.

He shook away the tears stinging his eyes. He wasn’t going to cry. He was going to enjoy one last day with his family the way it used to be, the way it should be. He was the only one who knew everything had changed, at least for now.

He made his way to the kitchen, deciding to make a pancake breakfast for the boys and their guest, his niece Violet. As the saying went, the way to the hearts in the Webber-Baldwin household was certainly through the stomachs.

He continued to mull over the things Terry had told him while he prepared the table and the food. He could lose his sense of taste or sight. But he was most worried about the personality shifts. No one knew exactly what part the first tumor played in his behavior. He was far from the only documented case of a tumor affecting behavior, but there was no definitive research in the area. He himself only knew that he was a different person now than he used to be. He didn’t want to revert. Would _this_ tumor affect him differently? If it did, what fresh hell would it bring?

He thought of his therapist, Kevin Collins. He was one subject in Kevin’s research. Maybe Kevin could help him sort through all of this. Maybe Kevin could give him some hope that he wasn’t going to become a monstrous killer once more. _Maybe._ He dared to hope.

He called his family down to breakfast and ignored their grumbling over missing getting to sleep late. Once the kids were seated at the table with food in front of them, they were more agreeable. Elizabeth kissed his cheek and thanked him for surprising them with a nice, hearty breakfast on this cool autumn morning. She then asked if he was sure he was up to it. She didn’t want him to pass out from exhaustion again.

_Yeah, about that…_ he looked down, avoiding her concerned gaze. Was he exhausted? Sure. But it was because cancer was ravaging his brain once again, not because he had been working too hard. Oh, if she only knew.

He bit his lip and shook away the urge to come clean right then and there. It would be a terrible thing to prepare this breakfast and then ruin it with news of his illness. That wasn’t what this day, this hour, was about. He had his wife and boys and niece close to him, happy, carefree even. He couldn’t spoil it.

He thought of Violet, the precious little girl whose mommy was missing. What if Finn never let him see her again because he feared the tumor? For that matter, what if Elizabeth asked him to leave to protect the boys? He felt panic rise in his chest momentarily, but he pushed it away before it could suffocate him. He couldn’t lose his family.

Elizabeth loved him. She trusted him. Well, she trusted him when he didn’t have a brain tumor. What if it changed? It’s not as if he could blame her for wanting to protect the boys.

Franco tried to focus on the conversation around him. Cam must have told a funny story about the Halloween party he attended, but Franco missed the gist of it. He made himself laugh because everyone else was laughing.

Jake and Aiden and Violet talked about the church harvest festival that Lulu took them to. She had volunteered to take Aiden, Jake, and Violet with her own children Rocco and Charlotte when she heard about Franco passing out at the Floating Rib. There had been games, face-painting, prizes for the best costumes, and, of course, lots of candy.

Breakfast was over before he knew it. Elizabeth had to take Violet home. Cam was meeting his friend Trina to study for a calculus exam. It was all about the grades this year. Cam hoped to get an athletic scholarship, but he needed good grades to get into his top college choices too.

Franco took a deep breath. He knew when Cam found out about the tumor, he would focus his efforts more on helping his mom deal with the day-to-day because there was a very good chance that Franco would become at least temporarily incapacitated by whatever treatment Terry settled on to for this inoperable mass. This tumor could cost Cameron his dream college.   
Franco reminded himself to be thankful that it was only _inoperable_ , not _untreatable_. It wasn’t a death sentence. Not necessarily, anyway.

He volunteered to clean up the kitchen citing that he had messed it up. The fact was, he wanted to do everything he could _while_ he could. And _the boys_. They didn’t deserve this disruption to their lives. They should be worried about their Christmas lists, not about whether their stepfather was going to live or die.

He stood at the sink, rinsing dishes, tears threatening to spill once again. How could he do this to them? How could the benevolent God worshipped at the church harvest festival do this to these children?

The kitchen was silent once everyone had gone back upstairs. His fears and worries hung like fog, touching everything in their home. He had one day to keep the fog to himself. Just one day.

He expected Elizabeth to be gone a couple of hours when she took Violet home. Anna would surely invite her in for tea and conversation. As much as Franco wanted to hold Elizabeth and keep her from ever leaving him again, he also wanted to let her have one more normal day… one more day without the cloud of _his_ cancer over _her_ sweet head.

While Elizabeth and Cameron were gone and Jake and Aiden were in their bedrooms reclaiming that extra hour of sleep, Franco took stock of the house. There were a few odd jobs he would complete today. It was his responsibility to take care of the home, to get it prepared for winter. A week from now, he might be wiped out after a chemotherapy treatment. He simply didn’t know what to expect at this point, only that nothing coming would be good.

Elizabeth called to tell him she was going to the grocery store. He wanted nothing more than to tell her to skip it and to come home and snuggle. He wanted to hold her, to feel her contentment. Things weren’t easy right now because her hours had been cut, but they were better than they had been while Nik and Ava tried to rip them apart. They had a newfound confidence in each other.

Franco’s fears, however, chipped at that confidence. While the rational part of him knew that Elizabeth would not abandon him, the irrational part believed she would be well within good judgment to do just that.

When Elizabeth got home, he helped her put away the groceries. She commented that he had been quiet all day. He shrugged and told her he was preoccupied. It wasn’t a lie, but if she wanted to assume that he was preoccupied with finances or the home repairs, she was welcome to believe that. He couldn’t tell her yet. He had one day—less than one day left before his self-set appointment with the truth.

All he wanted to do was protect Elizabeth and the boys from that truth. It would descend upon them soon enough. Until then, he had that extra hour. And he was going to make the best of it by being the best he could for his family. Today, he was the protector of his family. Tomorrow, he would be the one to hurt them. This day was slipping by too quickly, all twenty-five hours. He only hoped it was just his day and not his life that was fading away.


End file.
